Best of ATL Celebrity

Although DIAMONDE WILLIAMSON officially launched her online TV network, Blossom, in February, you can’t really skirt over how big of a deal the whole concept is. It’s probably the only Netflix-style, subscription-based video platform in the U.S. that presents content by and targeted to women of color (such as the talk show “Melanin Mommas”) — and that’s something no stinking-rich media company has ever endeavored to do. But leave it to Williamson and her team at this Atlanta-based startup to boldly go where no has before. Looks like the revolution will be televised after all. www.watchblossom.com. less...

It’s not just that former Mariettan Alan Ball parlayed his Academy Award for American Beauty’s screenplay into a TV series deal with HBO. It’s that the series in question, “Six Feet Under, in its depiction of a dysfunctional family that owns a funeral home, has been consistently original, edgy and surprising, proving that Ball learned a lot while toiling on such sitcoms as “Cybill and “Grace Under Fire. With its second season scheduled to begin next March, Ball’s “Six Feet Under presents some of television’s most finely wrought characters, gay and straight, old and young, alive and dead. less...

As fans of professional wrestling have long known, the Good Guys get the cheers, but the Bad Guys get the money. Pilloried by the press for his scattergun approach to casual sociopathology, the Braves reliever seems to embody the old joke about bigotry: He’s not prejudiced — he hates everybody. But Rocker’s no chump. His mug’s been on every TV screen, front page and most magazine covers; an entire legion of like-minded misanthropes has rallied to his spike-studded flag; and the stage is set for Rocker II — The Reformation, in which our hero realizes the error of his ways, embraces progressive multiculturism, writes a best-seller about his struggle with his own dark inner-self and speaks at the next Republican National Convention. Ka-ching! less...

Of course, there was the post-Pretty Woman over-exposure and then some rather unfortunate film choices. Then Sandra Bullock came along for a second to threaten her leading leading-lady stature. But more than a decade later, our Smyrna girl Julia is still going strong, as evidenced by her most recent acclaim in Erin Brockovich. By now, she’s more than proven herself to be more than a flavor of the month. For better or worse, she’s one of the enduring film icons of our age. less...

As much as anyone, producer-turned-record executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid deserves credit for making Atlanta’s urban music scene the national success it is. In fact, Reid has been so good at creating hits with his label LaFace, earlier this year he was tapped to succeed music industry legend Clive Davis as the president of LaFace’s parent company, Arista Records. While he now spends his weeks in a New York City office, Reid remains an Atlanta resident, therefore by far the city’s highest-ranking hit man. less...